Let me say that the Vikings put on one of the most horrible performances ever seen in a championship game. That team gave up in the second quarter; there were not more than about 5 players on the field after that point who actually hustled and tried to make plays. Randy Moss stunk out the joint and just plain quit. He did not run routes when the play was for someone else; he did not block anybody and he got the worst case of "listening for the footsteps" ever captured by an isolated camera in the history of the NFL.

Memo to Randy: You are a loudmouth; you have a lot of talent. But if you quit on a game again on national TV like you did Sunday, you may find yourself being cast as a faster and taller version of Jeff George. Lots of physical talent; lots of pointing fingers at others; lots of stats; no championships.

Memo to Dennis: You've been in the league about 9 or 10 years and have a playoff record that stinks. (I could go and look it up but frankly, it is not worth the effort; I'll bet that it is not significantly different from 3 -8.) How long until your genius mind figures out that to build a championship team, it takes defensive players too? And what might it take for you to admit that something has to change in your post-season preparation routines since they - how to say this so that it will register in your high-IQ brain - just don't work!

Brian Billick may not be the most loveable person on the planet, but he had his team ready to play. And all they did was to dominate the top rushing offense in the NFL to the point that a team averaging almost 155 yards rushing per game was held to 24 yards rushing on 17 carries and the leading rusher was Bobby Hoying who ran for his life three times and gained 13 yards. Tyrone Wheatley ran 12 times for 7 yards. With first and goal on the two yardline, the Raiders ran Tyrone on first down and looked up at the scoreboard to see that it was now second and goal from the three. Result: field goal three plays later!

I wonder if anyone knows where Danny Boy Snyder was on Sunday evening. Because if he missed the game, I hope someone taped it for him so he can see Art Modell - the guy who he charged to park his limos at FedEx Field - holding the championship trophy and getting ready to go to Tampa for the Super Bowl with his team and not with his trophy arm candy. Hope the guy sitting in front of you is not 6 feet tall, Danny Boy; if he is, you'll miss the action on the field.

Trent Dilfer was not good enough to get the job done in Tampa with a great defense there. Now he is going to the Super Bowl in Tampa with a great defense. Hmmm… Is it possible that the problem in Tampa was not Dilfer and might be Tony Dungy and the absurdly conservative offense he runs??? Ooops; sorry. It can't be Tony because the media has anointed him a genius too. Must be something else…

The firing of Chris Palmer in Cleveland has generated some of the statistics of his two year tenure there - and none of them are very good. After going 5-27 in the two years, which is not so awful for an expansion team, you have to look at the fact that the Browns were outscored by a total of 478 points in those 32 games. In case your calculator is in the pocket of your other coat, that means that the Browns were outscored by 15 points per game over a two year period and that is pretty awful! In the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, columnist Bill Livingston had a good line. He referred to a period over three games this year as the "ghastly Gretzky" where the Browns gave up 99 unanswered points. Look, the Browns were not a good team but then they got slaughtered by injuries and became a really bad team. There was some "buzz" before the season that the Browns might hang in contention for a playoff spot this year. To all the pundits who even hinted at that, find another supplier of mind altering substances before next year; last year's source gave you some really bad acid.

Bob Stoops has mercifully made short work of the rumors based on a bunch of disjointed facts and said he will stay in Oklahoma and not become the Browns' new coach. Believe it or not, one of the arguments about why he might leave OU - after he just signed a 5 year extension to his contract just a week ago - is that Stoops' father was once the high school football coach of Carmen Policy. If you look close enough, you will likely find that Stoops and Dwight Clark probably once got parking tickets in the same time zone on the same day. Now there is an element of male bonding that just cannot be denied!

And the Houston Texans who figure to be ghastly for a couple of years at the very least have supposedly interviewed Wade Phillips - or are just about to - as a potential coach there. Being Bum's son and being that the team is in Houston, that may be a sentimental link. But understand that the Texans will stink if Wade Phillips coaches them or if I coach them. They will lack a fundamental ingredient of a winner - quality players.

Paul Pierce - who is almost unarguably the best player on the Boston Celtics - was reflecting on the hard times that had befallen the franchise. Pierce was quoted as saying, "Teams look at us and say they're going to start their winning streak." Not a very upbeat stance for the best player on a team. Maybe Paul needs to try to convince a few Celtic players to play a little defense? At the moment, it seems that the Boston idea of defense is never to take your eyes off your man as he dunks the ball. And this from the franchise that traded for Bill Russell. It's sad.

Friday night the Celtics and Raptors played in the Fleet Center and based on that game, I think there needs to be an investigation of the air quality in the locker rooms. As the teams left the court at the end of the first half, the score was Raptors 54 and Celtics 46. Not bad, both teams are on pace to play above 90 points for the night. Then they go to the locker rooms to gather themselves and to refresh themselves and to focus strategy for the second half. In the third quarter, each team scored a total of 9 points; yes, that is nine points. It was the lowest total score in a third quarter in NBA history. There must be some sleeping gas in the locker rooms!

Speaking obliquely of the Raptors, they just traded three centers to the Denver Nuggets for two centers and Tracy Murray whose primary position is "pain in the ass". Forgetting the fact that only a fantasy league devotee could name five centers on these two teams, the Nuggets must have something else in mind because Raef LaFrentz is their starting center and one of their two top offensive players. But he and coach Issel have locked horns in the past. So is LaFrentz on his way somewhere else or is there another deal with some of these recently acquired big people in the works? I know that you have to have size on a basketball team, but no one needs to have - and no one can find the playing time for - four centers.

Previously, I told you about the defensive lineman at Alabama who allegedly wound up there because of money paid to high school coaches. Well, Albert Means has decided to withdraw from Alabama. It is certainly not clear what this gesture will accomplish other than to make him the subject of further recruiting pitches. Maybe he merely hopes to show that Albert Means Business??? Ba Da Bing! Ba Da Boom!!

The Athens Olympic Games hit another snag or three. The head of the company that is to build the athletes' village (room for about 17,500 athletes!) has been forced to resign on the basis of some "disagreements with the Greek government". Work is supposed to begin in March 2001 and to be completed in February 2004 leaving not a lot of time before the games. At the same time, a consortium of environmental groups has declared that they will engage in an "international campaign" to prevent the building of the rowing venue just outside Athens. What the consummate evil of this rowing venue might be is still a mystery, but since this is going to be an "international campaign" I'm sure we will hear more about it than we need to in the near future.

Several days ago, I said that I did not know why Dick Vermeil wanted to coach again at age 65. I listened as Vermeil did his Popeye the Sailor Act saying that he realized that he is a football coach and he is what he is. I heard the news conference blather about how he missed being with a coaching staff and how he missed the camaraderie of the locker room and how addictive the smell of a sweaty jockstrap can be but then I learned another factoid. Coaches get a pension from the NFL and that pension has survivor benefits for a spouse and that pension amount is based on the salary in the last five years of the coaching career. Presently, Vermeil's last five years consist of three with the Rams and two with the Eagles in the early 1980s when the amount he was making was probably not much more than the price of a large pizza with everything at Marra's in South Philly. Now he gets a couple of years at just over $3M per year and so the pension basis just jumped by a light-year.

It is now known that Joe Gilliam died of a cocaine overdose on Christmas day. If the NFL really wants to work with young athletes and to warn them of the dangers and the real life costs of heroin and cocaine, they need to put together a program based on the life of Joe Gilliam. There is footage of this guy and his ability to run and throw the football; there is footage of him being the starting QB for the Steelers just as they were beginning to emerge as the dominant team of the 1970s; there is footage of him at the depths of his despair and records of him pawning his Super Bowl rings; then there is the report of the Nashville medical examiner. I won't hold my breath waiting for this to appear because it is a bit more personal and controversial than the NFL ever wants to be, but it might be more meaningful than much of the other fluff that the league associates itself with.

If you saw Duke demolish Virginia on TV over the weekend, you know that Duke shot the lights out. If you look at the stat sheet, you will see that the Blue Devils shot 38-65 for the game. If you forget the three point shots, Duke shot 29-43 from the floor. That is not hot shooting; that is unconscious!

Speaking of the ACC for a moment, wouldn't it be a good idea if they booted FSU out of the conference? FSU is a football powerhouse and no one else in the ACC is. (Don't give me Clemson which is a top ten team every other even numbered year or UNC which is good for a couple of years and then stinko for the next seven.) The ACC is a basketball conference and FSU's basketball team is poor when it reaches the peak of it's achievement scale. The word that the administrators of the ACC should look for here is "mismatch".

The Phillies have had a golden opportunity handed to them on a silver platter. In this offseason, the Phils have noticed that their bullpen was abjectly miserable last year but they have missed the boat in what they did about it. So far they have signed Jose Mesa, Rheal Cromier and Ricky Bottalico to be in their bullpen next year despite the fact that all three of them have done next to nothing productive in the past year or two. Well, they can now put the icing on that cake because Heathcliff Slocumb has been waived by the San Diego Padres. If the Phils sign 'Cliff, they may have a corner on the market for "really bad relief pitchers who used to be decent about five years ago".

David Wells goes to the White Sox in a six player deal. Wells has been an outstanding pitcher for about the last three or four years but he is 37 and he is a tad overweight. When he starts to go round the bend, I think his pitching days are numbered in double digits. But since none of the other five players in the deal are household names, it probably means that this is a risk taken by the White Sox on a fiscal level only. One thing is sure. The White Sox now own the pitcher who is the early favorite to win the "Sid Fernandez Humongous Caboose Award" for 2001.

Aquinas College has gone Swarthmore one better. They are not only canceling their football program; they are canceling their entire athletic program at the end of the spring schedule. Finances are cited as the basis for this decision. Look for all the people who ran the athletic endeavors at Aquinas to take their prodigious experience and expertise on the open market. It will be a bonanza for other colleges and universities around the country.

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...